Yorkshire politics

Labour's migraine

ELECTION opponents usually miss no chance to point out why the other candidates are totally unsuitable for public office. Parties, meanwhile, cover up anything dodgy in their nominee's past. But in the constituency of Leeds North-East, the dirt is being dished on Labour's parliamentary candidate, Fabian Hamilton, by members of his own party while the Tories and Liberal Democrats, so far anyway, are doing little but looking on while the mud flies.

This is bad news for Labour because Leeds North-East also has a symbolic importance which will put it in the spotlight during the election campaign. By some calculations, it should be the seat which, on a 4.3% national swing from the Tories at the election, edges Labour into an overall majority in the House of Commons. The activists who until recently ran the local Labour Party in Leeds North-East seem unimpressed. They are still furious that their first choice as candidate, Liz Davies, a London lawyer, was rejected in 1995 by Labour's National Executive Committee as a left-wing trouble-maker. Their continuing battle with their own party means that Labour will probably need a much bigger national swing than 4.3% to win the seat.

Local left-wingers were made even angrier when Pam Tatlow, another left-wing woman and a union official, was narrowly beaten in a second selection contest by Mr Hamilton, who runs a computer business and is much more in the new Labour mould. Left-wing activists were not at all mollified by the fact that Mr Hamilton had run a good campaign as Labour's candidate in the constituency in 1992.

A few disgruntled constituency members dug into court records and discovered that in the 1980s two printing and design companies run by Mr Hamilton had been liquidated and there had been seven court rulings against him for non-payment of small debts. Mr Hamilton, who says that the judgments came after his firms went bust because of the recession and a theft, satisfied Labour's National Executive that nothing was amiss, and so was promptly endorsed by the committee as a candidate.

But some local members were not satisfied. After trawling through company records, one of them, Nick Whitehead, a railway union official, took out a private prosecution, alleging 31 breaches of the Companies Act. Mr Hamilton says the complaints are trumped-up trivia. Last month a High Court judge granted his request for a court hearing to have the allegations thrown out as a “vindictive and vexatious” campaign to have him removed as a candidate. He has a point. Mr Whitehead says it would be “stupid” to pretend his legal action has nothing to do with Ms Davies being dumped, and reckons that Mr Hamilton is “unsuitable” to be a councillor, never mind an MP.

But even if Mr Hamilton gets the case dismissed, his troubles are not over. In January the entire local Labour Party was suspended after national party officials decided that a meeting to elect local officials had not been run properly. The local officials, most of whom beat off challenges from Blairite members, are enraged.

Celia Foote, who chaired the local party until she was suspended, insists that she stuck strictly to the rules and thinks the suspension is a ploy to get rid of left-wingers like her. She and others have been busy raising money and consulting lawyers. Next week she will hold a meeting of supporters to discuss a legal action to have the suspension overturned. Whatever happens, she says, she will not work to help Mr Hamilton get elected.

All this is galling to Colin Challen, the full-time agent running Mr Hamilton's campaign. Nevertheless, he bravely insists that most of the roughly 1,000 party members in Leeds North-East are getting on with fighting their campaign, adding for good measure that, with help from nearby safe Labour seats, he has all the workers he needs. “We have contacted twice as many voters now as we had done by polling day at the last election,” he claims.

Despite the row in Leeds North-East, Labour leaders show no signs of backing down over the selection of Mr Hamilton. John Prescott, Labour's deputy leader, is due to visit the constituency on March 14th to support him. So far, claims Mr Hamilton, no more than a dozen out of the 1,200 voters Labour is canvassing by telephone each week mention the turmoil.

But the Tories and the Liberal Democrats say that plenty of people are talking to them about it. The Tories plan to go for the jugular next week with leaflets detailing the Labour in-fighting. Bill Winlow, the Liberal Democrat candidate and a local councillor, sniffs at such tactics. Nevertheless he does admit to hoping that Labour's problems will stop his supporters from voting tactically for Labour.

Leeds North-East is a tough nut for any party to crack. It is multi-cultural, including Afro-Caribbean and Asian voters in poorer inner-city districts, white and Jewish voters in wealthier suburbs and farming folk in the adjacent countryside. Mr Hamilton has his work cut out to win it; his dissident members are doing their best to make it an impossible task.